Kent School Standards according to OFSTED

Patrick Leeson, Kent's new Corporate Director of Education, said in an interview with Kent on Sunday this week: " My main job is to ensure that standards are good and children get better outcomes. Standards are good in secondary schools and most are either good or outstanding, which is great. But there are not enough good or outstanding primary schools. That's a key issue". I completely agree with him, and here's the evidence from Kent OFSTED inspections over the past eighteen months.......

This is an especially pertinent guide, as Mr Leeson was previously a director at OFSTED.

These really are Outstanding results for Kent. Especially pleasing are the results for non-selective schools, as so many critics of Kent's education system suggest that our non-selective schools are not delivering. This verdict not only flies in the face of Kent's GCSE results, which are above the national average, but we can see that in OFSTED terms, the non-selective schools achieve above national levels. I must confess surprise myself, at the high quality of OFSTED verdicts of our non-selective schools, which do make the case for Kent's selective system. Mr Leeson is spot on.

In contrast to our secondary school standards, these results make dismal reading. Taken in conjunction with Kent's below national average Key Stage 2 results, and with 10% of the bottom 200 primary schools at KS2 coming from Kent, there is still a long way to go. Mr Leeson is again spot on - except that I would say this is THE key issue for KCC, not A key issue.

I am sure every parent in an under performing Kent primary school (and they are in all parts of Kent) looks forward to seeing what change he can bring about. For myself, I ask the question: why has Kent's primary school performance been so bad for so long, with all the investment in advisers that has been made. I have included Maidstone in this analysis as the poorest performing Kent District of all. What on earth is going on in our county town?